LED Lights All the way Around Issues

[acd118]

Hello all. I'm brand new to the forum and also brand new to the Ram lifestyle. I just bought a 2016 Ram 1500 Express Crew Cab with the 5.7 Hemi. I had a Chevy Silverado for a super long time but when it came time for a new vehicle, it only took one drive in the Ram to become a Dodge guy. I absolutely LOVE how my Ram accelerates, handles, brakes, and even sounds. Have since day one and still do today. Plus it is a gorgeous truck!

Anyway, I subscribed to this forum in an effort to learn more about the Ram. This forum has been invaluable for almost every question I have ever had until recently. I am now completely confused and in the dark "literally" with the modifications I made to the lights on my truck. I have been up, down, back, and forth on this sight (and a few others) trying to find out what is the problem with my lights.

My wife and boys bought me all LED lights for Christmas and I just got done installing all of them. I believe the name brand of the headlights/turn signal bulbs/interior light bulbs are all Auxito and the taillights and third brake light are from DT Moto. Both had great reviews on eBay. At first, everything looked and worked awesome. But after about three days of driving, I am having severe issues with the lights.

I literally replaced every single incandescent light with a LED bulb. All exterior and interior lights have been switched out to LED. Install was pretty painless as I simply watched YouTube videos and have been working on trucks and cars for many years. Everything was plug and play with no re-wiring, cutting, or splicing needed. However, I did learn that I will need resistors for the front turn signals (which are switchbacks). I pulled the LED turns out of the front and put the factory incandescent bulbs back in which cleared the "turn signal out" codes for both sides. Everything works great for about 20 minutes to half an hour, and then my headlights start going off, come back on, go off, come back on, then go out completely. Both low and high beams.

I've seen that there are can bus cancelers, extra resistors, and even Alpha OBD settings (?) that people have tried using, but I haven't seen anything stating a direct no nonsense fix for this problem. Does anyone know anything that is a simple fix for these lights that were all supposed to just pop in and work? I should note that both the low and high beam LED lights have the resistors as part of the wiring in the pigtail. I also understand that I will probably have to get additional resistors to splice into the factory wiring harness for the LED switchback turn signals up front and that I need to drill and tap them to the metal framing because of the heat output. If anyone needs additional information, please let me know and I will provide as much info as I possibly can. I really don't want to lose lights in the dark obviously and can't stand the fact that LED lights are so stinking confusing to deal with. I would also really like to keep the entire truck LED (including the interior) but would certainly do without the interior lights if I had too (meaning if the interior lights were causing the problems).

Any info would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!! Vendors? Thanks in advance!!!

 

[OC455]

I'm eventually going to be getting the Alpha OBD and do some testing on my Ram with it. From what I've read on the Alpha thread (1000's of posts) and saw that you can change the settings to LED or HID on headlights, taillights and turn signals of the truck from what I've read. I've read through the numerous posts on the thread, that if you change the setting for the specific light to LED or HID the truck won't send the power to the light as pulse width modulated power if my understanding is correct.

I've been looking into this as well before I put my HID/LED retrofit headlights on my truck to replace the quad halogens.

When I get closer to putting in my headlights, I'm going to change out the front turn signal bulbs to the Profile Peak 3157's I bought and then change the setting for the front turn signal bulbs to LED with the Alpha OBD. Then go from there to see if there is any issues.

 

[acd118]

I'm eventually going to be getting the Alpha OBD and do some testing on my Ram with it. From what I've read on the Alpha thread (1000's of posts) and saw that you can change the settings to LED or HID on headlights, taillights and turn signals of the truck from what I've read. I've read through the numerous posts on the thread, that if you change the setting for the specific light to LED or HID the truck won't send the power to the light as pulse width modulated power if my understanding is correct.

I've been looking into this as well before I put my HID/LED retrofit headlights on my truck to replace the quad halogens.

When I get closer to putting in my headlights, I'm going to change out the front turn signal bulbs to the Profile Peak 3157's I bought and then change the setting for the front turn signal bulbs to LED with the Alpha OBD. Then go from there to see if there is any issues.

I appreciate that info. So where does one obtain the right Alpha scanner? Is this something the dealerships only have access to? A few of the posts say they are no different than the OBD scanners of yesteryear.

This would be the greatest thing available if it works and is readily available to the public at a price that is achievable.

 

[OC455]

The Alfa OBD is an app on Google Play Store. $49.00 And the OBD Link is what plugs into the Ram so you can run the app. Whole long thread on it here:

https://www.ramforum.com/threads/alfaobd.123982/

This is what they says works without issues to run the app:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006NZTZLQ?tag=viglink21284-20

You have an advantage over me, I have a 2018 and have to buy a bypass harness to get the Alpha OBD to work where you don't have to worry about it.

I'm still going to have to wait a little bit to get the app, OBD Link and the harness. So for $130 you have the ability to make changes to what you need with what is already within your Ram.

 

[radkawi]

OC455 is correct. Using the AlphaOBD software to set your lamps as LED is the best way to go. You can spend the money on resistors then time splicing them in but your then done and get no more out of the time/money spent. Buy the software license and MX dongle and you can change settings in the BCM (body control module) for a host of options even the dealer states they cannot accomplish for you. Heck you'd save a ton of time just in not going through the splicing process. Besides, no-one really wants to hack a harness if they can avoid it.
Invest the time in reading the Alph thread, pay attention to the links on page one, then make an informed decision. You'll be glad you did.

 

[OC455]

Heck you'd save a ton of time just in not going through the splicing process. Besides, no-one really wants to hack a harness if they can avoid it.
Invest the time in reading the Alph thread, pay attention to the links on page one, then make an informed decision. You'll be glad you did.

^THIS^

 

[bryce88]

One thing I noticed in your initial post is you said the LEDs for the headlights already have resistors in the pigtail? You may be referring to the LED driver, that's what most of them have that I've seen, so it's not simply a resistor. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that's what the little boxes are that are wired into the pigtail.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[EagleChief]

You can leave the interior lights all LED. They won't have any effect on the exterior lights. At least, they shouldn't.

I changed out my interior domes to LED and all is fine. My reverse lights are LED, but I get a bulb out warning for those... I just ignore it. Replaced my 3rd brake light with an aftermarket housing which is all LED and no issues.

Also replaced my low beams and fog lights with OPT7 Fluxbeam-X LED's and they have worked great. I've had them for about a year, maybe getting close to a year and a half with no issues. But, they came with all of the drives and capaciters and whatever else was needed to make it plug and play.

I can't help you on the turn signals or rear lights, as I haven't touched them.

Sounds like the AlphaOBD may be the way to go.

 

[atc250r]

I have LUYED 921's from Amazon for my backup lights and haven't had any problems in almost 3 months. For the map and license plate bulbs I have Sirius LED 194's also from Amazon and LUYED's for the back seat light, those are from Amazon as well. No error codes but when I first did the interior ones I had to leave the dimmer switch all the way to the left (I've heard that is called party mode as it allows the doors to be open with the lights off) for a couple of days. That seems to have reset something and they have been fine ever since and that was 2 months ago. I have LED low beams from DDM Tuning and I ordered them with their CANBUS error eliminator boxes and haven't had a single issue since. I was actually getting an occasional flicker with the stock halogen low beams but with the DDM stuff its been fine.

 

[acd118]

One thing I noticed in your initial post is you said the LEDs for the headlights already have resistors in the pigtail? You may be referring to the LED driver, that's what most of them have that I've seen, so it's not simply a resistor. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that's what the little boxes are that are wired into the pigtail.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

You're right, my bad. After researching, I did see that the boxes on the wire harness are drivers.

 

[ErnieBoling]

You can leave the interior lights all LED. They won't have any effect on the exterior lights. At least, they shouldn't.

I changed out my interior domes to LED and all is fine. My reverse lights are LED, but I get a bulb out warning for those... I just ignore it. Replaced my 3rd brake light with an aftermarket housing which is all LED and no issues.

Also replaced my low beams and fog lights with OPT7 Fluxbeam-X LED's and they have worked great. I've had them for about a year, maybe getting close to a year and a half with no issues. But, they came with all of the drives and capaciters and whatever else was needed to make it plug and play.

I can't help you on the turn signals or rear lights, as I haven't touched them.

Sounds like the AlphaOBD may be the way to go.

Swap your reverse lights to Lasfit 1000 lumen LED. No bulb out warning and dirt cheap. Super bright.

 

[acd118]

I have read that each model year has specific parameters in the ECU. This means that each model year may act differently from the previous or next year. I'm not entirely sure if there is a specific fix for each issue/problem but I highly recommend looking at all the different threads about lights and potential issues and/or fixes. It has helped me tremendously.

 

[acd118]

Forgot to mention that the OBDLink MX+ and Alfa app do work well ONCE YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THEM! Very confusing at first but there is tons of help in here.

 

[rexdog]

I'm eventually going to be getting the Alpha OBD and do some testing on my Ram with it. From what I've read on the Alpha thread (1000's of posts) and saw that you can change the settings to LED or HID on headlights, taillights and turn signals of the truck from what I've read. I've read through the numerous posts on the thread, that if you change the setting for the specific light to LED or HID the truck won't send the power to the light as pulse width modulated power if my understanding is correct.

I've been looking into this as well before I put my HID/LED retrofit headlights on my truck to replace the quad halogens.

When I get closer to putting in my headlights, I'm going to change out the front turn signal bulbs to the Profile Peak 3157's I bought and then change the setting for the front turn signal bulbs to LED with the Alpha OBD. Then go from there to see if there is any issues.

I have the Profile Peak 3157 and also AlfOBD. The lights are bright and look really good but they are wishy-washy in the dash. They perform well on the outside of the truck but fluctuate between hyper-flashing and normal operation on the dash.

I've tried numerous settings in the Alfa software but cant seem to track it down. I've run across others with similar issues using these lights so maybe they are just not CANBUS compatible?

My LED headlights,fog lights, reverse lights, lisence plate lights all work fine, just these switchbacks seem to be finicky.

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[Dinky]

+1 for AlfaOBD. Had resistors when to put in new headlights had issues with 2 different types of switch backs. Got AlfaOBD fixed everything took out all resistors. Very simple

 

[Ruckus Amongus]

I've got a 2019 and the Leds are stock. been through two lights and rewired the harness three times. Passenger side hig/low still wont work. havent found anything as far as fixing it to date. hard reset